Aftermath

“Ugh… This is a mess…” The youth on the throne contemplated with a sigh, holding his temples in pain. In front of him was an unexpected table with piles and piles of paperwork, stacked so high that even someone as tall as him was only barely visible behind that monstrous amount of work.

In short, everything that he had built from meeting his so-called ticket to winning the war until now had completely fallen apart. From one of his generals’ betrayal, to the large-scale fight that happened just outside his kingdom’s gate, and now even the savior himself had turned listless, stuck in his own room. It was a complete failure on all fronts, with the only saving grace being the scarce rain that had temporarily quenched his people’s wrath — but who knew how long he would be able to keep the fuse from burning again.

“Your Majesty, about the mourning of our fallen soldiers…” from afar in the room, one of his current generals spoke with much caution. Little did he know, it wasn’t nearly enough to keep the fire under the young king down.

“We can’t be hosting a funeral now!” Arja yelled, swiping away the stack of papers in front of him, scattering them across his spot. “Our morale is already at rock-bottom, and now you expect me to host a mourning for nearly a thousand more losses?”

In truth, it was far worse than that. The battle that had occurred had wiped Drought of nearly all of its fighting personnel. All that remained were just a few elite platoons and two out of four Stigma wielders left. Even if one of them — Arja included, naturally — could easily deal with more than a few dozens of monsters, it was still hardly enough compared to the kind of force that invaded them.

And yet, right now, Drought was still safe. He didn’t know why Drizzle wouldn’t just send in their whole force to crush him if that last invasion was only a part of their army, but perhaps it was all part of their plan from the start. A mental attack, for instance, would be much more devastating. Imagine if the leader was agonized from then, slowly losing his sanity and morale until walking into an obvious trap himself — it would be a fate much worse than death.\

And Arja was teetering right on the edge of that pit. He didn’t have a clue of what Drizzle was scheming. His work piled more and more because of the lost battle. His forces were in tatters. He only had a single person he could trust now. And his lifeline was destroyed just like that.

“Damn it!” The young monarch punched onto the table in frustration. “I need something! Something to get us out of this whole ordeal!”

At the same time, something came at him at blitzing speed. Reflexively, Arja caught it, but his pressure was so great that the object was soon crushed in his hand, splashing out water all over.

“Ah, damn it!” He shouted, only now noticing the purple sludge in his palm. “Is this a mangosteen?”

“I thought you would be thirsty,” from outside, a voice sounded. Hava came in with a worried look on his face.

“Hah… No, thanks,” answered Arja, flinging away the rest of the fruit’s flesh from his hand. “I’m good.”

“No, you’re not. You’ve been at this desk for three whole days. Rest up.” His attendant was insistent.

“Look, I literally have work filled up to my head. I can’t rest now.”

“And I’m saying that only by resting will you finish it. Look at your eyebags! They’re deep enough to sink a camel inside!”

“I need to continue,” Arja kept brushing off the suggestion, his now-dried hands once again moving through the pile of papers like a machine.

“... Is it because of the kid?”

“He’s at most a year younger than me, you know.”

“And had you not been my childhood friend and the king of this nation, I would have called you ‘kid’ as well.”

“Gee, thanks for the comment there, buddy.”

“... But is it because of him?” Hava asked once more.

“... I have to,” finally, Arja stopped from his work to raise his head. “Now that Ren can’t transform anymore, I need something else to keep the populace in place. And not to mention all of the other incidents… We need another conscription soon, too, since most of our soldiers are gone.”

“Was the ritual we held enough?”

“A couple days at most. The people’s faith hasn’t wavered, but they’re also fickle.”

“How long do you think we can last?”

Arja’s eyes widened. He had practically grown up with Hava, and this was the first time he had ever seen his friend enter a battle without a sure-to-win mentality.

But there were only two of them in the room. Arja knew that it wasn’t time to show his friend a leader’s face, but Arja’s face.

“My guess… we fall as soon as they land the next attack,” letting out a sigh, he answered. “The problem is that we don’t know when they’ll strike.”

As if waiting for that answer, Hava grinned. “Then your thoughts align with me.”

Arja was already too used to that smile. With sweat pouring from his forehead, the young monarch asked. “You don’t mean…”

“Yeah. We hit them before they hit us.”

“Are you suggesting we take whatever forces…”

“Of course not,” Hava shook his head. “We, as in only two of us. It’s not a large-scale fight, but an infiltration. If we can beat Duna and Kana, we’ve already crushed most of their strength. Finding out the summoner and killing them will take care of the rest of the monsters.”

“... I hate to agree, but you have a point. But the summoner takes priority; Kana and Duna, no matter how strong they might be, are still around our level in terms of combat strength. And we can only do so much against the plethora of monsters at their disposal.”

“Looks like we’re on the same page,” nodded Hava. “Then we leave at…”

“... No. Not yet.”

“Huh?” Hava’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean ‘not yet’? What’s keeping us?”

“We bring Ren with us.”

The answer was like a lightning strike to the general.

“Are you insane, Arja? He’d only drag us down!”

“... No. Think about it,” Arja, on the other hand, remained calm as a river. “The people are uneasy. What better way to clear it than with a conquest? Sending our most elite forces right into the foe’s territory and crushing them once and for all; we can make it out to be that way.”

“But the kid is in no shape to transform, right?”

“Maybe he got better, but…” Arja’s eyes gleamed a devious light. “Do the people need to know that?”

“Then… just a moral buff? At the risk of losing our lives?”

“Of course not. Think about it for a sec; we have another way if things go south, right?”

At this moment, Hava realized just what his friend was exactly suggesting.

Swallowing his fear and anxiety, the man asked; his voice shook from the mere thought:

“You mean, we…”

“What else?” Smiled Arja. “We have Indra and Vritra in one place. A perfect combination, don’t you think?”

The prophecy. That was the final card in their hand. Indeed, there was little chance that they could succeed in such a dangerous operation. If they could actually pull it off, then great, they’d be known as Drought’s heroes for eternity. But what if they failed?

Then all they needed to do was to sacrifice the kid from another world. He had no relations to them anyway, and one life in exchange for the unification of humanity… Well, then that was a risk worth playing, right?

However, Hava’s mind still lingered in doubt. Arja’s words might have sounded feasible, but it wasn’t like Arja to do this.

“But I thought you said…”

“That the Great Serpent is our lifeline? That much hasn’t changed, my sworn brother,” the young king grinned. “If his power can help us, great. If it can’t anymore, we sacrifice him for the prophecy. Either way, if the prophecy is fulfilled, then Drizzle shouldn’t have any reason to touch us anymore, right? ‘Unification of humanity’ and all.”

“What about the chances of them assimilating us, like you said before?”

“That much would only be true if we resisted. But think about it, my friend: why exactly did Kana switch sides? What did she do when she switched to their side?”

“She…”

A flash of thought ran in Hava’s head.

“She went to look for the kid… to kill him.”

“Exactly,” Arja snapped his fingers. “I’ve been thinking about it. While I don’t know her exact reasons, from what I’ve seen and what Ren had told us, Kana’s target from start to finish was him alone. If she were to get him, there’s no reason for Kana to keep being on their side again.”

“And if we can get rid of the kid, we gain another tremendous boost in power… I see…”

“Bingo,” Arja answered with a nod. “Now, let’s get our guest of honor, shall we?”

As the two went outside, however, the sky had already turned into a pitch-black, with only the dim light of a few stars to guide them the way.

“Damn, it’s night already?” Arja scratched his head in frustration. “I didn’t notice.”

“Maybe we can return tomorrow,” Hava sighed. “Even if we go now, the kid is likely asleep.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow it is.”

Even if a bit dejected, the two men returned to their quarters, finally getting the sleep that they both so needed.

However, never in their wildest dream did the two expect that it was the last good sleep they were able to get.

That night, Tatsumiya Renji disappeared from Drought without so much of a trace remaining.